Abstract
Is friendship still possible under nihilistic conditions? Kant and Nietzsche are important stages in the history of the idealization of friendship, which leads inevitably to the problem of nihilism. Nietzsche himself claims on the one hand that only something like friendship can save us in our nihilistic condition, but on the other hand that precisely friendship has been unmasked and become impossible by these very conditions. It seems we are struck in the nihilistic paradox of not being allowed to believe in the possibility of what we cannot do without. Literary imagination since the 19th century seems to make us even more skeptical. Maybe Beckett provides an illustration of a way out that fits well to Nietzsche's claim that only "the most moderate, those who do not require any extreme articles of faith" will be able to cope with nihilism.
Highlights
Nietzsche, who lived most of his thinking life as a solitary hermit, who searched for, and complained about his solitude in almost every letter he sent off, wrote rather extensively on friendship in most of his books
Kant seems to be Nietzsche’s opposite: while he wrote no more than a few pages on the topic, he met with friends on a daily basis
I wanted to point to this close alliance, in order to raise the question that I announced already at the beginning: if friendship and morality are so strongly bound together, what happens with friendship when morality is undermined or collapses; can there still be friendship without morality? Or rather: what is the fate of friendship under conditions of nihilism? But let’s first look at Kant and his role in this story
Summary
Nietzsche, who lived most of his thinking life as a solitary hermit, who searched for, and complained about his solitude in almost every letter he sent off, wrote rather extensively on friendship in most of his books. In both aspects, Kant seems to be Nietzsche’s opposite: while he wrote no more than a few pages on the topic, he met with friends on a daily basis. My suggestion will be that Nietzsche’s awareness of the problem of nihilism, a problem in which Kant unknowingly was involved as well, can explain the similarities, as well as the differences, in their respective views and practices of friendship. I will start with Aristotle, and go to Cicero and Montaigne, before coming to Kant and Nietzsche, and at our own age
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